This video is from Taiwan. It shows Chien-Ming Wang, managing at a recent charity, getting on the mound to throw a few warm-up pitches. Wang is just a few months’ removed from surgery and only just begun to throw right-handed. So he takes a few to glove from the left slide before turning the ball back over to his pitcher. He looks like he’s having fun, but Wang is a long way away from the days of being an ace.
For Wang, this week might be the last of his Yankee career. December 12 — next Saturday — is the deadline for teams to decide whether or not to tender their pre-free agent players a contract for 2010, and Ken Davidoff tonight reports that Wang might as well begin shopping his services now. The Yankees, he says, “don’t see Wang as being able to help significantly next year,” and the pitcher would make too much via arbitration to make it worth while.
Davidoff also notes that the Dodgers will be interested once Wang is officially a free agent. In L.A. he would be reunited with Torre, a manager who trusted him with a Game 1 ALDS start as recently as 2007.
It’s amazing to think how quickly Wang declined. Even before his foot injury, he seemed to have lost that touch with his sinker, and since that fateful day in Houston, he has been a non-factor. Maybe he’ll come back to contribute again. I’ll root for him, wherever he might land.
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